I drag my nails lightly across my palm, grounding myself in the sensation.
“I should have told her no,” he says. “I should have left her out of it completely.”
His fingers drum once, then go still.
“I was supposed to sit at the table with them,” he goes on. “My mom told me to move one of the cars in the driveway before dinner started. It was blocking the entrance and some of the guests were complaining. I grabbed the keys and walked outside.”
The engine dips as he eases off the gas for a curve.
“I heard the first shots before I even reached the car.”
I turn fully toward him now, my breath catching without warning.
“By the time I got back inside, it was already over,” he murmurs.
My hand slips from my lap and presses against the seat beside me.
“They didn’t just kill them,” Beau continues. “They made sure the bodies told a story. Hands were cut so nobody could hold power again. Rings were taken so no one could pretend the old bosses were still in charge. Faces were destroyed so nobody could build shrines for them later.”
A car passes in the opposite lane, headlights flashing across his face.
“My brothers died under the table. My sister died in my mother’s lap.”
I swallow hard and look away for a second, staring out at the blur of trees.
“My girlfriend died in that house with them.”
My fingers curl into the fabric of my leggings.
“They wiped out everything tied to them. Blood, alliances, attachments. They made sure nothing survived that could grow into a problem later.”
He shifts his shoulders slightly, like he’s trying to shake something off.
“That was the first time I realized loving someone could get them killed.”
The words settle heavy, pressing into the quiet between us.
Losing your family like that was already unimaginable, but losing the person you loved at eighteen, in a room that was supposed to mark peace, felt like a different kind of devastation. There was no time to process it, no space to say goodbye.
For a second, my mind betrays me and goes straight to Seth.
To the way he looks at me like I am the only thing keeping him here. To the way everything in him burns too hot, too fast, too absolute. To how easilysomething like this could happen again if we aren't careful, if we slip even once.
I press my lips together and force the thought down.
It explains something about Beau that I had not fully understood before, the distance, the control, the way he moves through the world like attachment comes with a cost he has already paid once.
“I saw her before one of my father’s men pulled me out,” Beau continues. “He shoved me into a car and drove like hell. The whole time he kept telling me how lucky I was.”
I shake my head slightly. “Wow.”
“They said I didn’t have to take over the family anymore,” Beau sighs. “They said I could walk away from all of it.”
I glance at him again. “Did you believe them?”
“For about five minutes,” he says. “Then the rest of them started talking.”
His jaw shifts as he exhales through his nose.
